Somewhere Between Luck and Trust (31 page)

“You forgot the injured watchdog.”

She wondered what it would be like to be loved by a good man, like this one. To be loved by Sully.

To love Sully.

“You deserve better.” She reached out, and for just a second she rested her fingertips on his shoulder. “We can’t complicate this situation any more than it already is.”

“Do you trust me? After everything? Then trust me on this, too. I’m going to keep you safe. That’s all we have to think about right now. For the record, if you don’t want to, you never have to think about anything else. I’m moving in to protect you, not to prove how charming I am or rack up points.”

She had to smile. Learning he had a lighter side was welcome, but she heard the more serious undertone, too. Sully was confident that spending more time together was going to be a good thing for both of them.

“I’ve slept on this couch for a lot of nights. You’ll be comfortable. I’ll get sheets and a blanket. Will you call me if there’s any change in Beau?”

“If we’re gone in the morning, don’t worry. I’ll be on my way to Mars Hill to have him checked over. Jackson won’t bother you in the daylight.”

And after everything she’d just said to him, and everything she truly believed about the hopelessness of their situation, she still rested her head on his shoulder for a moment, in silent tribute and thanks.

Chapter Thirty-Five

IN THE DAYS
after Sully began spending the night on her sofa, Cristy slept better than she had since going to prison. Just knowing he was downstairs meant she could give herself entirely to sleep, and now when she awoke in the mornings, she felt rested, even enthusiastic about the day to come. Beau, who sported a neat row of stitches on his flank, had taken to sleeping on the rug beside her bed, which was doubly comforting. The dog was recovering well, although he was clearly stiff and not one bit excited about chasing squirrels.

Sully usually arrived right before nightfall, but he always called first to make sure none of the goddesses were spending the night. He had skipped Saturday, since Harmony had come with Lottie, Marilla and her boys to plant the tomato trees and help Cristy start a compost pile in an old holding pen beside the barn. For dinner they had built a bonfire and roasted vegetarian hot dogs and marshmallows, as the smoke of hickory and pine drifted toward a sky filled with stars.

Cristy liked Marilla, who walked with a cane, but never let that stop her. She had promised Cristy that once the garden began to produce she would come up for a day and help preserve what they’d grown. A freezer was under discussion, too, with Marilla and Harmony leading the charge.

Cristy had debated telling Harmony about Jackson, but in the end, the lighthearted evening just hadn’t seemed like the best time to broach a serious topic.

After work on Monday she took the baby quilt to the front porch to work in the afternoon sunlight. Beau came with her, choosing a sunshine puddle just his size and curling up to let the warmth work its healing magic.

She had advanced to the letter
f,
which she’d cut from red corduroy and ironed to a blue-and-white-striped fabric that looked as if it had been cut from a man’s dress shirt. Now she was practicing her blanket stitch and sewing the edges of the letter in bright green thread. The stitches were insurance.

Cristy had discovered she liked hand sewing. Making sure the stitches were all the same size and distance apart was challenging. More interesting, sometimes now when she saw one of the letters, she could almost feel the shape against her fingertips. Georgia had told her this was called tactile or kinesthetic memory, a proven help in teaching dyslexic children to read. If Michael had inherited dyslexia, the blanket might be a help.

Engrossed in what she was doing, she didn’t hear the car coming up the driveway until Beau lifted his head and gave a lethargic warning bark. She recognized the sedan and sat back, both relieved and wary, as Analiese Wagner started up the hill.

“Hello, Cristy!” Analiese waved and Cristy waved back. The minister was in black Capris and a fuchsia shirt. Her hair hung free to her shoulders, and from a distance she looked more like the television news reporter she’d once been than the minister she was now.

“I called to let you know I was on my way up, but I didn’t get you.” Analiese made herself at home beside Cristy, without asking permission. “We ought to add voice mail to the service here. That way you could get messages.”

“Please don’t!” Cristy hadn’t realized how sharp her response would sound, but it was too late to call it back now.

“Really?”

She couldn’t very well explain that if Jackson had a way to leave messages, he might—friendly-sounding messages no one else would understand so there could be no way of proving intimidation. He would ask about Michael, or how that big dog of hers was doing, or how she liked her job at that pretty bed-and-breakfast down the road. His way of pointing out how much he knew about her easily ended life.

“You’re already doing enough,” she said, and as far as the explanation went, it was true. “Please don’t do any more. I’ll just feel guilty.”

“I guess I worry about you being up here all alone. As peaceful as it is, things can still happen. If you didn’t answer when I called, I could leave you a message, then you could call me back and reassure me.”

The door was wide open now, and Cristy knew if she said there was no reason to worry, her reassurance would be a lie. “I have a man staying here to protect me” would be the full truth, but with that one, an explanation was required. She realized with a sinking heart that the time had come to be completely honest. The goddesses deserved nothing less.

“Something’s wrong,” Analiese said, reading her expression.

“There
has
been some trouble. And I should have told somebody about it sooner. It’s just...” Cristy fished for the right words. “It’s just I was afraid you might ask me to leave.”

“What kind of trouble?”

Cristy took a deep breath and told Analiese about Jackson. All about him. “I guess Beau went after him, because Jackson shot him,” she finished.

Analiese leaned forward to look at the sleeping dog, as if to reassure herself he had survived. “
When
were you going to tell us? I can’t believe you’ve been living out here with nobody to help you.”

“That’s the thing. Somebody
is
helping. A sheriff’s deputy named Jim Sullivan—Sully—is onto Jackson. Beau is
his
dog. Sully left him here because he thought I needed a watchdog.” She decided not to mention the stun gun. “He knows Jackson set me up for the theft, and he knows Jackson’s trying to intimidate me. I called him after I found the note. Now Sully’s staying here at night, on the sofa. Jackson won’t bother me when somebody else is here.”

“Why didn’t you trust us with this?”

“It was too important for me to be able to stay. I hoped if I just kept out of his life, Jackson would leave me alone. But now I know he won’t, and it’s not fair to all of you to have this going on behind your backs.”

Analiese leaned back against the arm of the glider so she could see Cristy head-on. “I’ll think about what you’ve told me. At the very least we need double bolts on the doors—good locks that are harder to pick.”

“If Jackson wants to get in, he’ll just break a window. He would probably prefer that since it would be more frightening for me.”

“Why is Jackson doing this?”

“Because he can. Because terrorizing people gives him a thrill. And maybe because he hopes I’ll take Michael and leave North Carolina for good.”

“So he wants you farther away?”

There was, of course, another reason, but only Cristy and Jackson knew what it was.

“There’s more, isn’t there?” Analiese prompted.

“There’s a phrase.” She tried to recall it and couldn’t. “Occupational...”

“Hazard?” Analiese supplied.

“That’s the one. Assuming somebody’s lying. Is that an occupational hazard of being a minister?”

Analiese looked as if she was trying not to smile. “
My
occupational hazard is trying to read people’s minds, to see if they need help telling more of the truth. I have a feeling you have things buried deep inside you that you can’t share with anybody yet. Things eating at you.”

“Georgia told you what I said to her, didn’t she? About choices I have to make.”

“She did.”

“She
told
me I ought to talk to you.”

“And you didn’t because you’re afraid I’m like your father.”

Cristy struggled to be fair. “No, I can see you’re not. He closed the front door of the parsonage in my face. You opened this door to me, and I was a stranger.”

“‘For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in. I needed clothes and you clothed me. I was sick and you looked after me. I was in prison and you came to visit me.’”

Cristy recognized the quote, a passage from Matthew in the New Testament, although it had never been one of her father’s favorites. Clara had liked it, though, and recited it whenever she wanted permission from their parents to do one sort of good work or another.

“Is that why you’ve been kind to me? Because your religion tells you to?”

“My
heart
tells me to be kind. Unfortunately I sometimes need to pay better attention, which is when those verses come in handy.”

“I’m not religious, just so you know. And I’m not ready to talk to you or anybody else about my choices.”

Analiese nodded. “I just want you to know you can when you’re ready. To me or any of us. But whatever you tell me’s just between us.” She reached over and lifted the corner of the block Cristy was working on. “For your son, I bet.”

Cristy waited for Analiese to ask her what she was going to do about Michael, or worse, to look distressed that the baby wasn’t yet with her.

“It’s something I can do for him right now,” Cristy said stiffly.

“Do you know I still have the teddy bear I slept with as a toddler? Mr. Pookey. I’ve been known to cuddle with him after a really bad day, while I’m watching something completely ridiculous on television.”

Cristy couldn’t help herself. That made her laugh. “Really?”

Analiese flashed her beautiful smile. “Absolutely. Come down to Asheville some afternoon and I’ll take you to my favorite restaurant. Then, if you’ve been properly deferential, I’ll let you hold Mr. Pookey, too.”

Cristy didn’t know why that was exactly the right thing to say, but she found herself smiling back, the tension easing out of her spine. “You just want to hear my secrets.”

Analiese got to her feet. “Darn right, because then that means we’ll be friends. Now, do you have a few minutes to show me the garden? One of the best parts of this goddess thing is going to be the veggies that come with it this year. You have no idea how much I like to eat.”

* * *

Dawson arrived just as Analiese was leaving. Cristy had enjoyed herself with the other woman, even forgetting for a time that Analiese was there to help her through her present crisis. As they’d walked back toward the house, Analiese had asked if she could discuss Jackson with the other goddesses, but Cristy had asked her to wait until, at the very least, she could tell Georgia and Samantha herself. She knew she wasn’t being fair to Analiese, but neither did she want the minister to become her go-between. This was too important.

She introduced Dawson to Analiese, then watched as the other woman backed out and drove away.

“I can tell you our minister doesn’t look like that,” Dawson said.

“I didn’t know you were coming today.”

“The magazine staff was supposed to meet after classes, but that got cancelled. We’re putting out a digital version this year since we got started so late. We’re editing stuff online, but not everybody finished.”

She imagined he hadn’t wanted to go home. “So you came to visit. Sweet.”

“I wrote another story for you.”

“Really sweet. I love your stories. I was working on the baby quilt when Analiese showed up. I’ll show you what I’ve done.”

On the porch he flopped down on the glider as she showed him all the blocks she had completed. He seemed to like them.

“When I’m alone, everything I do involves reading,” Dawson said. “It must be boring to be up here and not be able to read. And I bet the TV signal sucks.”

She’d been thinking of something she wanted to ask him, and that was as good a lead-in as she was likely to get. “There’s something you could help me with if you were willing.”

“If it involves wheelbarrows and garden tools, the answer is no.”

“Just a pen and paper. There’s this guy I know. He’s at the county jail awaiting trial, and I’d like to write him, only...”

“Only you can’t read, so you sure can’t write.”

“My handwriting’s getting better, only that’s just copying, not real writing.”

“So you want me to write the letter?”

“I was thinking about asking you. What do you think you’d say if I did?”

“I would probably say yes. Just don’t pour out your heart to this guy and embarrass me.”

“He’s just a nice guy who got caught up in something, and now he’s paying the price.”

“That’s what happened to you, isn’t it? I mean, is this something going around over in Yancey County? Like some kind of disease? Get-screwed-and-go-to-jail disease?”

“There’s one guy infecting everybody. Get too close to him and you’re bound to come down with it.”

“Somebody ought to call the health department.”

She left to find paper and returned a few minutes later with some she had found in a desk drawer. He’d already moved to the table.

“How do I find out where to send it?” she asked. “Can we just put Yancey County Jail?”

“The internet will have the full address.” He paused, as if it had just occurred to him that the internet was completely off her radar. “I can find it and address the letter for you. You might need his prison ID number, or something. I’ll find out.”

“I don’t even know what a stamp costs. Why would I?”

“It keeps going higher, but hardly anybody writes letters these days. It’s email or texting or Facebook.”

“By the time I learn to write letters there won’t be any point, will there?”

“You’re catching on so quick you’ll get to use a stamp or two yet.”

She realized she should have made a trip to the post office before asking for his help.

He read her expression. “We have stamps at home. I’ll take it and mail it.” Dawson moved on. “So what do you want to say?”

“I guess I’m supposed to put my address and the date at the top, right?”

“Do you have an address?”

She didn’t really know. She excused herself and went into the living room where a stack of junk mail sat beside the fireplace to be used as tinder. She only retrieved the mail a couple of times a week, since nothing came except circulars and advertisements. She took a handful back to Dawson. He shuffled through the stack, then he copied the address from the top one.

“And today’s May 21.” He wrote that under the address. His handwriting was neat and easy to read. She was glad, because Kenny wasn’t much of a scholar.

“So now what?”

“I guess we start with ‘Dear Kenny.’”

He wrote that and waited.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” she dictated slowly. “I understand better than anybody what you’re going through and why. I’m living in Madison County in an old farmhouse in the country, and every time I wake up in the morning...” She waited until Dawson caught up with her.